Reflecting on Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7, Mark 13:33-37

Do you have a memory of the experience of feeling the presence of God in a moment so electric that it was as if God had “opened the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before him”?  Perhaps it was the birth of your child, or the recovery of a lost love, or a phone call from the exact person you were just thinking about.

We wait for Christ to come again in time, but we long for him to touch us in our own time, our own lives.  Think about those blessed moments of spine-tingling awareness that God is HERE, right now, opening doors that seemed closed, showing a way to reconciliation with those who were estranged, gently leading us through new insights and ancient, rock-solid creeds.

Imagine the servants, struggling to stay awake so they can greet the Master with a nice meal and warm hospitality when he returns.  I think Advent invites us to stay awake every day, to watch every day for the gentle presence of our Master who is already here.

What is your Advent practice of watching for Christ?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 25:31-46

And so the year ends as it began.  Last Advent we began this year of Matthew by reading the account of the angel who appeared to St. Joseph in a dream, telling him that Mary had conceived a child through the Holy Spirit.  And this was to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had spoken, that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, whose name would be Emmanuel, which means God with us.

And all year long Matthew told memories of Jesus that brought that truth home over and over again.  The poor in spirit, the peacemakers, those who mourn—God is with them!  Those who ask, and seek, and knock—God is with them!  Fishermen, and Canaanite women, and tax collectors who leave it all behind to follow Jesus—God is with them!  And even workers who come to the fields very late in day come to know that God is with them too.

And now, at the Final Judgment, the greatest of all secrets is revealed: He is not only with us, but He has become us. Through his Incarnation in us he has actually become one with us.  He has so embedded Himself with us that when others see us in our brokenness they are looking at Christ Himself.

Lord, when did we see You?  When we were sick and found comfort, unemployed and found work, at a dead end and found the way out, was that You? Ah.  So it was You all along, healing us through Your Body on earth and in heaven.  And behold, You are with us always, even unto the end of the age.

When did someone see you when you needed them to?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 25:14-30

Boy, it’s hard to hear the Gospel today and not applaud the third slave who was savvy enough to bury his one talent so at least he had that to give back to his master.  With pensions gone and 401Ks vanished and wise investments brought to ruin, who doesn’t wish they had buried their money in a field somewhere, ready to be dug up when times get tougher?

Parable of the talents (John Morgan, 1823-1886)

But I also root for the third slave because I think he suffers from a deep insecurity, or maybe an anxiety disorder, that keeps him from putting himself out there and taking a risk.  How many people do you know—or maybe it’s you—who are paralyzed in some place in their lives?  For so many people the daily struggle to just make eye contact, say hello, and make their way in our extroverted society is a challenge that leaves them exhausted by day’s end.

Or recall Vincent, whose immense brilliance compelled him to capture beauty in its thousands of manifestations on his canvasses.  But tortured by anxiety and self-doubt, he finally yielded to that starry night where his art could torture him no more.

It’s risky and painful to put yourself out there, but in the most important race of all it’s crucial that you show up. Today Jesus is urging us to take every risk, use every single opportunity to secure the Kingdom of Heaven.  Love, and more love will be given you.  Have faith, and more faith will take root in you.  Be rich in hope, and more hope will abound.  That’s the simple Math of the Kingdom of God.

In what ways does your daily investment in love pay great dividends?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 25:1-13

We’re coming near to the end of the liturgical year, and boy can we feel it.  Paul warns about trumpets sounding and God’s voice resounding through archangels.  And then of course we have this parable of the ten virgins, all anxious for the (late) Bridegroom, but only five are prepared for His coming.  Yes, the end-of-the-world readings are screaming for our attention.

But I want to recall a scene in The Hiding Place, one of the most powerful books written about those who lived and died during the Holocaust.  Corrie ten Boom, her sister and their father had been hiding terrified Jews in a secret upstairs closet in Corrie’s room in Amsterdam.   Corrie, organized and thoughtful, had prepared a bag for herself, with aspirin, a change of clothes, and some small crackers to comfort her when she inevitably fell into the hands of the Nazis and was taken off to the camps.

But the night that the (always punctual) Germans showed up at her house, screaming and pounding and demanding entrance, those who were being hidden leapt into the secret room while Corrie threw her bag in front of the closet.

And when they dragged her away, already feverish with influenza, she left her bag behind.  She couldn’t take the chance that an errant piece of clothing was hanging outside the closet, a clue that would have ended in death for all who had sought safety with her.

And she saved them all. How?  By heroically sacrificing her own preparation for those who could never prepare.  And I’ll bet that, at the moment of her death decades later, the Bridegroom took her straight away into the Wedding Feast.

In what ways have you prepared to meet the Bridegroom?

In loving memory of Sr. Antonia Anthony, OSF, whose happy death on November 4th, surrounded by the Marycrest Franciscans and her family, helped an entire wing at Denver Health sense that the Bridegroom had come for her.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 23: 1-12

Don’t you love people who do wonderful, holy things every day, out of the sight of the rest of us?  Every once in a while we might accidentally catch them doing good, and I think it’s important that we do.  How else can we be edified and inspired if we never know that they are companioning an elderly neighbor through his last months in hospice, or loving and comforting a mentally ill spouse, or singing and dancing with a beautiful child backstage for four hours before she walks down the runway with Ed McCaffrey in the Down Syndrome Fashion Show?

There’s really no other possible explanation for the heroic things that average people do every day except for this: they are in love.  They have let themselves fall deeply in love with Love, and out of that collision has come hospitals, schools, shelters, food banks, foundations, and the spouse who, less than a year after her own mother’s long goodbye, now helps care for her husband’s mother as she begins that same journey.

Parents are the most inspiring example I can think of, especially those with children who are, how to say this, challenging?  Love is patient and kind, believes all things and hopes all things. Is there anything more beautiful than parents who believe and hope and love their children through the awkwardness of adolescence?

Let’s take a second to just let all that goodness pour over us and into us and out from us. It’s hard to be inspired by the Pharisees, who put their good works on display.  How sad.  Because our true measure is who we are when no one’s looking.

What example can you give of someone who is heroic in silent, small ways?

For Fred,  Lynda, Delane, and Mary

who continue to inspire after all these years

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mathew 22: 34-40

The challenge today to love our neighbor as ourselves is, as one clever writer put it, “like sand in your swimsuit”.  You can squirm and wiggle and try to re-position yourself, but that sand isn’t letting go until you deal with it.

Moses, painting by Jusepe de Ribera 1591-1652

Do we have enough resources between us all to let others matter to us as much as they matter to themselves? I think so.  Let me tell you about the members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, who’ve heard and seen it all and still dig deep within themselves to listen carefully and lovingly to those most in need of mercy.

Let me tell you about Portland researcher Dr. Brian Drucker.  Way back when he was in medical school he looked at chronic myelogenous leukemia and said, “I’m going to cure that”.  For twenty years he worked almost obsessively, even enduring the ridicule of his peers at a conference where he presented his approach to a cure.  But he let his patients matter to him as much as they mattered to themselves. And in 2001 Dr. Brian Drucker brought the chemotherapy drug Gleevec to market, the only true cancer breakthrough in our lifetimes.

Let me tell you about the Colorado Vincentian Volunteers, a group of twenty-somethings who give a year of service to children, teenagers and adults in Denver—precious human beings who long to matter to someone as much (or more, sometimes) as they matter to themselves.

Can you remember the times when you received that kind of love?  When someone really listened to your story and cared?  Really noticed your pain and helped take it away?  That’s what the laws of Moses, which Jesus is quoting in today’s Gospel, are demanding. 

 Or as Rabbi Hillel famously said,  “The whole Torah can be taught while standing on one leg: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow.  This is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary.  Go and learn it.”

In what ways have you mattered to someone as much as you matter to yourself?

In memory of Patty and Len Langenderfer.  Vincentian to the core, they simply noticed the needs of people whom they knew God had placed in their paths.  And nothing has been the same since.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 22:15-21

The Tribute Coin (Reubens, c.1612)

Every once in a while Jesus says something very funny, and today’s Gospel gives us one of his best zingers.  Cultural historian John Pilch points out that when Jesus says “Show me the coin that pays the Temple tax” he’s setting a trap that the Pharisees and Herodians never see coming until they’ve fallen right into it.

Since the denarius used for paying taxes bore the image of the emperor Tiberius (and the inscription identified him as the son of the “divine Augustus”) even having this coin in one’s possession was shameful.  But somehow those ever-observant Pharisees had the coin right there.  Can’t you just see Jesus given them the “Oh, well isn’t THIS interesting” look?

So they must already have been a little cowed when he took the sacrilegious coin from them and asked them whose image and likeness it bore.  Caesar’s, of course.  And then I imagine him asking “And whose image and likeness do YOU bear?” God’s, of course.  So live in that freedom.

“The world may have our hands, but God has our hearts” (Abraham Heschel).

In what ways do you see the image of God in those around you?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Philippians 4: 12-14, 19-20

It was Christ who carried you

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. How many times have you posted that on your refrigerator, recited it to yourself at the doctor’s office, or prayed it as you pushed yourself to swim that extra lap or run that extra mile?

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. How many times have you prayed that as you left your warm bed to tend to a crying child, or answer the call of an elderly neighbor, or get ready for another day of work that provides for your family and contributes to the good of society?

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. When you think back on times in your life when you were afraid, or powerless, or anxious, or sick, or in grief so deep you couldn’t breathe, can you now see that it was Christ who strengthened you, Christ who carried you, Christ who has never, never left you?

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me, forever and ever, Amen.

What prayer do you hold in your heart and say throughout the day?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on  Philippians 4:6-9, Matthew 21:33-43

One of the greatest things about growing up in my family was that our house was the meeting place for all of our friends.  We were ground zero for every pick-up basketball game, every Friday night fish-sticks-and-macaroni- dinner for ten before going off to swim at Celebrity Lanes.  My parents (of blessed memory) had waited many years for their kids to arrive, and they loved having their house filled with our friends and all the Beatles records that came with them.

Recently, I’ve had the great joy of re-connecting with many of the friends who came in and out of our house all those years.  Many of them have said to me, “Remember how I used to roll my eyes and laugh at your dad’s lectures before I left the house?  He had so much to tell me, and I didn’t want to hear any of it.  I wish I could go back and follow the advice he gave me then.”

As time passes it all comes into clearer view:  it’s only love that lasts, not fads and adolescent arrogance, not the pseudo-wisdom of pop psychiatry or the allure of instant popularity on Facebook.  Whatever is true, or honorable, or just, or pure, or lovely, or gracious, or excellent, or worthy of praise−−think on these things.  St. Paul’s words jump off the page today as we remember the times in our lives when we have been changed by an encounter with real graciousness, real forgiveness, real purity, real truth.

The Owner of the Vineyard graciously planted those fruits within our walls at our baptism.  How are we doing with the harvest?

What gracious or lovely or honorable things do you like to “think on”?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Matthew 21:28-32

Remember your mercies, Oh Lord

Wedding rehearsals are always filled with nervous questions:  What if I trip on my veil?  What if I forget my vows?  What if the photographer is late?

There is an antidote to all that anxiety:  make a mistake right off the bat and then enjoy the rest of the wedding.  Yes!  The flower girl had to be dragged down the aisle kicking and screaming!  Whew.  Now that the pressure for perfection is blown we can all relax.

At some point in our lives we finally see what everyone else has always known about us: we make mistakes.  It’s easy to be distracted from our own faults by observing the huge flaws of all of our friends, and when we run out of excuses watching them we can always turn to movie stars, international banking corporations and all those crooks in Washington.  Finally, we can depend on terrorists, serial killers and drug cartels to delay that inevitable, shocking moment of truth: we too have disappointed people and failed to love.  We too have promised to go into the vineyard, but never actually gone.

And it’s in that moment of discovery of our own sin that grace begins to settle in.  How great is the forgiveness others have offered to us more times than we knew!  Remember your mercies, oh Lord, and start with us.  Because we suddenly see how gracious you have been in overlooking and forgiving and lifting us up, over and over again.

And so, our cover blown, we can relax into God’s love, with the tax collectors and prostitutes who are speeding into the kingdom, full of sin, full of grace.

Are there people in your life with whom you can be totally yourself and still know that your are loved?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).